Lots of ripe fruit and spices here with hints of dark berries and subtle smoked meat. Full and caressingly textured with a long finish. So delicious now but will improve with bottle age. A blend of 64% Merlot, 31% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon.

Get Ready: The Super Italians Are Coming Aromas of lead pencil and currants with blueberries. Medium body, chewy tannins and a savory finish. Needs two or three years to soften.

Get Ready: The Super Italians Are Coming Pretty and balanced 2014 with currant and berry character and just hints of vanilla. Full-bodied yet tight and focused. Needs a year or two to soften even more, but already very attractive.

The 2012 Arcanum is mostly Cabernet Franc (71%) with smaller parts Merlot (16%), Cabernet Sauvignon (10%) and Petit Verdot (3%). This is a dark and thickly extracted wine that pours from the bottle with midnight black intensity. The Cabernet aromas play a leading role with rosemary and wild herb behind plump cherry and blackberry. This is a big wine and an aspirational one as well. It should continue its evolution over the next decade or more.

Concentrated yet lively, this exudes black currant, cherry, olive, tobacco and iron aromas and flavors. Vibrant and pure, with a coating of oak spice and tannins on the finish. Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot.

The 2011 Arcanum is a blend of 77% Cabernet Franc, 14% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Petit Verdot aged in new French oak for up to one year. The wine is extraordinarily black and dense in appearance with virtually no light penetration. The bouquet is equally rich and generous with black fruit, prune, spice, leather and black olive aromas. The natural tannic astringency of the wine is apparent on the palate and adds to the wine's firm structure and power.

Aromas of blueberry, spice and cherry character. Medium to full body, fine and integrated tannins yet a velvety texture. Mostly cabernet franc with some merlot, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot. Drink or hold.

Harmonious, this Bordeaux look-alike boasts ripe black cherry, black currant, cassis and violet flavors, with leather and tobacco elements creeping in. Needs time to absorb the beefy tannins. Best from 2017 through 2026.

Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke purchased this estate in 1994. The property, near the town of Castelnuovo Berardenga, focuses on Bordeaux varietal blends, this on built on cabernet franc (51 percent), merlot and cabernet sauvignon. It's more vinous than many super-Tuscans, opening with air to full-on richness, not heavy but complete. New oak scents give way to brisk notes of forest floor and black olives, finishing floral and bright. It leaves the mouth feeling refreshed, with hints of anise in a zesty fragrance that lasts. An intriguing interpretation of the Tuscan hills.

Anakota's 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Montana is fabulous. Rich, sensual and enveloping, the 2015 captures all the allure that defines the best wines of the year. Super-ripe red cherry, plum, wild flowers and spice all mesh together in this ample, creamy Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon. As always, the Helena Montana presents a decidedly fruit-driven personality next to the more savory Helena Dakota.

The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Dakota Vineyard is laced with a host of mineral and soil-driven elements that add considerable nuance to the dark, plush fruit. Smoke, graphite, gravel, incense, blackberry jam and menthol give the 2015 its layered, beautifully expressive personality. I would prefer to give the 2015 a few years in bottle to allow the tannins to soften. This is another impressive showing from Anakota and Pierre Seillan.

The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Montana is a dark, powerful wine. Graphite, exotic spice, crème de cassis, menthol, licorice and plums are some of the notes that meld together in a powerful, jammy Cabernet Sauvignon that balances concentration, striking aromatics and a very classic sense of Knights Valley minerality. Give this sumptuous, opulent 100% Cabernet Sauvignon at least a few years in bottle and drink it over the next decade or so.

The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Montana Vineyard has come together very nicely over the last year, as the savory, mineral notes have taken on greater prominence, while the fruit lies more in the background compared to the much more opulent Helena Dakota. The 2012 is a decidedly big, powerful wine built on a compelling interplay of rich fruit. Here, too, the Helena Montana could use more time in bottle to fully come together, even though it is quite striking now. This is a big boy, there is no question of that.

Dark and lush with lovely texture, ripe plum, cassis and spice; generous and dense, rich and balanced, long and classic.

This wine is inky black in color and insanely tannic. Yet it’s massive in blackberries, and clearly of pedigreed origins. It should begin to blossom by 2018, and develop for years beyond.

The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Montana Vineyard has the big, broad shoulders typical of this wine, but in this vintage there is a little more fruit than normal, which makes the wines incredibly accessible at this young stage. Rich, voluptuous and impeccably layered, the 2009 shows great balance and class. The level of tannin finesse and pure elegance are both above the1988. Hints of mocha, espresso and violets wrap around the juicy finish. This round, enveloping Cabernet is unbelievably sexy. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2029.

This is a big, rich, dramatic Cabernet, marked with flavors of ripe blackberry and black currant. It’s clearly a pedigreed wine, yet it’s young and aggressive in tannins, making it astringent. Cellar it for a good eight years, to see what it can do.

Tastes big, thick and full-bodied, with ripe fruit and new oak dominating. The particular flavors are of blackberries and black currants. The tannins are fierce and dry, making the wine barely drinkable now. Cellar it until 2015, at the very least.

The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Dakota Vineyard is much darker and textured than the Montana, mostly because of the slate rock in these three blocks. Sweet dark blueberries, black berries, licorice, violets and melted road tar all flesh out in the glass. A structured, dense wine, the 2008 is totally alive in the glass. The balance of fruit and structure is simply compelling. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2028.

Saturated ruby. Extremely primary aromas of cassis, blackberry, boysenberry, violet, licorice, coffee and crushed rock. At once fine-grained and penetrating, with strong minerality and nicely integrated acidity giving a light touch to the mouth-saturating black fruit flavors. This sweet, savory, beautifully balanced wine features firm but harmonious tannins and a very long, echoing finish. Still a baby!

Offers up beautiful scents of flowers, blackberries, blueberries, charcoal, hot rocks, and smoky new oak. Rich, full-bodied, and tannic, this impressive effort possesses a Bordeaux-like elegance and complexity. It represents a combination of North Coast Cabernet with Bordeaux freshness and elegance. Give it 2-3 more years of bottle age, and enjoy it over the following 10-15 years.

From ten-year-old vines planted in the granitic soils of San Francisco Vineyard, this carmenère balances its scents of herbs and spices with an extra degree of acidity that makes it so drinkable, and perfect for lamb chops. The tight, pleasantly rustic tannins will do the rest. Chill it down to enhance the red fruit flavors that shine in the background.

This bottling is the “best of the best” from the vineyard. Winemaker Shane Moore identifies the best blocks in the property that he feels fit the style of Slope, often selecting individual rows. The specific rows and blocks vary from year to year, but the top blocks are always hand selected. Moderately dark garnet color in the glass. Shy, but pleasant aromas of dark berries and leather. Mid weight flavors of blackberry, cassis and spice have an impressive attack and length with an amazingly long and generous finish. A hint of oak-driven vanilla and tobacco chimes in. Impeccable balance, with blended tannins and a creamy texture. The most concentrated of the three 2014 wines reviewed here. Much better over time in the glass.

Brilliant red. Ripe cherry and black raspberry scents are complicated by suave floral pastille and incense nuances. Sappy and expansive on the palate, offering concentrated, oak-spiced red and dark berry liqueur flavors that turn sweeter on the back half. Shows excellent clarity and power on an impressively long, penetrating finish framed by silky, even tannins.

The nose is a violet, cranberry, licorice and cedar. The palate is lush red fruit, chocolate and floral notes with well-polished acidity.